It has always been my position that “marketing” is a series of activities like advertising, public relations, publicity, market research, etc. etc. that includes “selling”. I have always believed and espoused in this column that good marketing is aimed at facilitating the selling function. Furthermore, since many printing companies have no formal marketing program, I have encouraged print salespeople to be their own marketing departments.
Since I am confused I figure I can write just about anything and my readers who are similarly perplexed won’t know the difference. I think I’m confused because the marketing consultants have made the whole marketing exercise so exotic, or should it be esoteric, that only they understand it and as a consequence, the rest of us poor mortals are at their mercy.
I intend to clear up the mystery about marketing and sales before this column ends and then we can get on with our lives.
A press release made by the American Marketing Association (AMA) earlier this year provides a redefinition of “marketing”. It turns out the AMA selects a committee to rewrite the definition every five years, whether it needs it or not. The nine member committee that created the newest definition in 2007 included six university educators, one person from an automaker, one from a research firm and one from the AMA.
The new definition was released on January 14, 2008 and, darn it, I missed it. The press release read “’One of the most important changes to American Marketing Association’s new definition for marketing is that marketing is presented as a broader activity,’ says Nancy Costopulos, Chief Marketing Officer of the American Marketing Association.” Ms. Costopulos continued, “Marketing is no longer a function – it is an educational process”.
How’d you like to have that job, Chief Marketing Officer for the American Marketing Association? Talk about pressure where you have to know everything about marketing all the time. Never late with and answer and never, never a lame answer.
I am late and lame. Here I am six months late giving the new definition to my readers. I know, I know. You expect more timely information from the Maňana Man.
Okay! Get ready! Get a pencil and some paper.
The new definition reads:
“Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”
The previous five-year old outdated and now obsolete definition stated:
“Marketing is an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating, and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders.”
If you have this old definition on a poster on the wall of the sales department, tear it down and trash it now!
You must immediately adopt, memorize and use the new definition. Notice that I did not use the word utilize which I have abolished and formally demanded be eliminated from all dictionaries.
Here, I’ll repeat it and then try to make it relevant to the printing industry:
“Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”
“Marketing is the activity”, is better viewed as a group of activities, distinctly different from one another. For example, your printing company does as newsletter mailing that media and target audience is probably very different than your website.
The next phrase, “set of institutions” is one I don’t even understand, so let’s forget that.
I agree with the word “processes”. These are the activities I was referring to previously. The processes include market research, market planning, market identification, advertising, sales promotions, customer education programs, direct mail, public relations and publicity. Printing companies must orchestrate these activities in ways that create positive awareness among buyers in their target market(s).
Yes, each of the processes, a corporate brochure, for example, requires creativity. The message then must be delivered and it’s the printing company marketer’s job to decide the best method of delivery. Since we are printers, to use a simple example, printed media is a much better delivery vehicle than a television advertisement.
The remaining language in the new definition is, “creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large”. The final part of the definition is obtuse and I wonder what the committee meant by “exchanging offerings” for customers, clients (same thing as customers), partners (?) and society at large (?). Oh, I know, some might argue that clients are longer term than customers but that’s splitting hairs.
You know what? Forget the new marketing definition. It doesn’t really fit our industry or any other industry for that matter. I am an old fashioned narrow-minded salesman and I have always been a devotee of the late Peter Drucker who passed away in 2005. If you don’t know Peter Drucker, then Google his name and it will save me writing a short bio.
Peter Drucker had, in my opinion, the ultimate marketing wisdom. He wrote, “The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.” Wow! Now that’s profound.
Then he went on to write, “The best way to predict the future is to create it.” And the, “The purpose of a business is to create a customer.” Here’s another biggie, “Business has only two functions -- marketing and innovation”. Huge statements!
Then finally Peter Drucker wrote, “An enterprise's purpose begins on the outside with the customer. It is the customer who determines what a business is, what it produces, and whether it will prosper."
If you are a printing company owner, you better figure out how to define and do marketing for your company.
If you are a printing salesperson who works for a company that markets well and it makes your job fun and successful, then count your blessings and keep cashing those big commission checks.
If you are a salesperson whose company either does no or poor marketing, you better figure out how to become your own marketing department (columns I have written in the past) or look for another job. In most printing segments, there is no more effective form of marketing communication than your well-scrubbed smiling face in front of a lot of prospects and customers every day.
This, of course, leads me to conclude, “It’s time to get out there and sell something!”
